gardens, ballet, and medical professionals......

For several days I've been trying to motivate myself to write. This morning I figured I might as well sit down and force myself because I have one very devoted reader (grandma) and I know she checks regularly, so I have to keep my reader(s) happy! Okay, now that I said that, my grandma is going to call and say, "you shouldn't be writing, you need to take a nap....I do love your blog posts though and those pictures of the kids are just amazing!" And then I feel all amazing and like I'm the best photographer and write ever but really it's my grandma and she's pretty partial to my amazingness.    


Well anyway, last Friday the weather was wonderful and we spent the whole day outside digging in the dirt and planning my garden or should I say, gardens. At dinner Walter and I were joking that I'm going to have sell some of my plants at the end of our driveway because I have so many and I've gone a little crazy with the planting. Oh, and I'm not done yet. Thus far Isabella and I only have flowers and herbs started, and one kind of tomato which she was insisting we must plant. I've decided that I love planting seeds. It's so rewarding to watch them grow and since my seeds are on steroids there's some serious growth going on. I have no idea if I'll enjoy true gardening, but I'm expecting that I'll like it, minus the bugs of course. Yeah, not too excited about the bugs. But I did feign excitement when Isabella and I dug up a worm the other day.

Isabella is obsessed with ballet. No, she's never taken ballet but she tells me almost every day that when she's four she is going to bal-le-lai school. I guess I'd better get on that because she was heartbroken last week when her neighbor friend couldn't play with her because she had to go to ballet--"but mommy, I just want to go to bal-le-lai school with Lola, why can't I go with her? I want to do bal-le-lai like Angeline Ballerina." I felt so bad and told her that she could show me some her own ballet moves and then I watched as she proceeded to dance around the living-room. Apparently ballerinas stop mid movement with one leg in the air...this seems to be her signature move.

Yesterday it was nice out again and if you live in Ohio you know that any moment of nice weather means you must be outside and enjoy it. So Isabella and I were outside kicking the ball back and forth when I said, "why do you keep shaking you leg?" "Because I have to shake my leg to get a big kick!" Note to self: you may look ridiculous doing it, but shake leg for big kick.

Probably the best thing about this nice weather is the fact that I can put a blanket on the grass and some toys and Isaac seems perfectly content. As a testament to my mothering, I placed Isaac in direct sunlight, thinking of course this would be wonderful for him to get some Vitamin D, and then the next day he had a sunburn. I'll just pat myself on the back for that one. People always comment on how pale Isaac is. Pretty much. This of course has led doctors to think his iron is low and drum roll please....iron is fine, he's just a very white boy!

With that said, all of his blood work is normal. Yesterday I took him to hospital to have a test done that is called an Upper GI. Basically they fed barium to him and then took X-rays of his stomach and small intestine. That was all normal and functioning properly. The thing that always shocks me, is conversations like this:
-So, what we're going to do, is give him a bottle with barium in it and most of the time babies are happy to suck it down because they haven't eaten for three hours so generally they're hungry.
-Okay, well, he doesn't take a bottle, so can you use a syringe to give the barium to him?
-He doesn't take a bottle? How and what does he eat?

Really? I mean, really? I know you're a medical professional and went to school much longer than me and have a really cool degree and get to stick needles in people and say important things and sound really smart...but really? Let me just give a little lesson. Maybe you missed this class or slept through it. There are these things called breasts and when a woman has a baby, there are hormones that make that woman's body lactate--have you heard of that? Yeah, I didn't think so. Well, anyway, once the woman lactates (look it up in a dictionary) she produces milk, breast milk. I know, it's totally confusing, but this amazing milk can feed a baby! Sorry, did I lose you somewhere...THIS MILK CAN FEED A HUMAN BABY AND MEET ALL OF IT'S NUTRITIONAL NEEDS FOR UP TO SIX MONTHS AND THEY CAN KEEP BREASTFEEDING AFTER THAT (oops, maybe I lost you with that part--it's pretty crazy, I know). Oh sorry, I forgot one big piece of the puzzle, the baby latches on to the mother to do what is called nursing also known as breastfeeding and therefore, does not need a bottle unless of course that mother wants her baby to take a bottle, which is totally fine. I know, this is a lot to take in, but I'm sure once it sinks in you'll understand it all and then you can relay this mind boggling message to all of your doctor friends.

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Walter just sticks the kids in boxes when I'm gone.....

Sorry Sarah. I know you don't want to see snow, but I have a few left over pictures from our last snow fall.

Polly pocket in trouble again.....

Our nights with Isaac continue to be anything but pleasant. On a particularly rough night last week, I handed Isaac to Walter and he continued screaming so Walter handed him back to me (it's like playing hot potato, neither one of us wants to get stuck with the baby) and he promptly passed out.....

Yes, he still sleeps in his bouncy seat. Walter suggested we buy a hammock and string it across his room and have him sleep in that since he's outgrowing the seat (in length, not weight, obviously).

Even though they're out of focus, I love these next pictures.....

Happy to see 'da'....

Eskimo kisses.....

Isabella wanted to take a picture.....

For Walter's birthday gift my parents gave him a head lamp to use for household projects in small spaces. Because Walter hates having to get out of bed to turn off the light after reading stories to Isabella, he found that wearing the head lamp for reading works out perfectly.

A high five before the race....

First shoes.....

Only cool dads carry pink jackets in their pocket....

My sister signed my mom and I up for a facial and makeup at Nordstrom. It was lots of fun but here's the thing, getting makeup done with my sister is always annoying because everyone who looks at her says, "oh my goodness look at your skin, it's so amazing, you're so beautiful." And there I am like chopped liver with pimples all over my face. Oh well. 

My mom said, "here let me take picture of you and Isaac, it's so cute the way he's looking at you"....

nice try mom

later..."okay, now set it up so I can get a good picture this time"....

close

that's a little bit better.

And some quotes from Isabella: 

-At dinner last week Walter and I were talking about how challenging Isaac has been in the middle of the night and Isabella said, "It's okay mommy, sometimes it's just hard to get babies to go to sleep. You just need to be a better mommy to Isaac." Nice one. I'll work on that.

-"You're a good mommy....sometimes."

She's right though, I can't be a good mommy all the time--that's impossible and I will be the first to admit it. My goal is to not be a parent who thinks she's perfect and apparently, Isabella does a good job at keeping me in check. 

Freak out....

I woke up this morning, after very little sleep last night, and read this e-mail from Sarah: "what happened to your blog???" At first I thought it was probably some weird formatting thing that happened and then I went to the link and every alarm in my head was going off as I was thinking WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BLOG????? Blogger stated that it had been removed. Well, this resulted in an immediate meltdown--Isabella style. I tried calling Walter's cell phone, no answer, then the lab he was supposed to be in, not there, then I called my mom and the first thing out of my mouth was (sobbing of course), "MY BLOG IS GONE AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO IT." Why was I so upset you might ask. Well, first of all, it seems pretty obvious to me, but I'll give you benefit of the doubt and explain...um, hello, everything I've written about my kids is documented here and I would be devastaed not to have it. Praise God though because after clicking many random buttons and shedding many tears and much snot and I didn't wash my face before I went to bed (I know, number one rule of wearing makeup: Wash your face before you go to bed--sorry) so I had mascara running everywhere.......it came back and now I'm back in business and here you are reading all about my interesting life and my two amazing children and hilarious dog. While I was on the phone crying to my mom Isabella said, "mommy what's wrong?" And I said, "my blog is gone and everything I've written in the past year is gone and I don't know what to do."

Last year I had a similar scare when my laptop randomly stopped working and I was horribly upset because though I do share quite a bit with you on my blog, I also write a lot in my journal, which is a Word document--you're bummed right, you thought you were in on all the juicy details of my life--sorry. Well, now we have three different hard drives that simultaneously back up (I think) everything on the computer, so that problem is solved.

Then this day just kept getting better because I've spent about two hours on the phone with people who work in doctor's offices who are seemingly incompetant. Have you heard of the show Tabitha's Salon Takeover? There needs to be Tabitha's Doctor's Office Takeover--Hello, I'm Tabitha and I'm taking over. I've cancelled all of your appointments for the next week and by the end of it some you may still be here and some of you may not.....yeah, I watch it a lot in the middle of the night. All I want to know is: HOW HARD IS IT TO FAX A PIECE OF PAPER!!!!????? SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. Anyway, I'm trying to remain calm and nice and I was really doing a good job until I talked with Isaac's regular pediatrician's nurse and she said that he (the doctor) didn't want to step on this other doctor's toes by calling in the order for some tests that are supposed to be run and I started crying and I said, "I don't care about stepping on toes. Toes need to be RUN OVER right now because nothing is getting done and this is important and if he'll fax over the papers we won't ever go to that doctor again because he isn't doing ANYTHING and something needs to be DONE and it doesn't matter anyway because I never WANT to see that doctor again and I have an appointment with the Cleveland Clinic on Wednesday and we'll just see THEM from now on because this is ridiculous. Well, she was very nice and sympathetic and now I'm waiting for yet another phone call--fun stuff!

So anyway, it's been a long day but the good news is that Isaac has gained another ounce! And I'll leave you with that. Sorry, no pictures this time!

Smiles from Isaac....

Isaac and I just got home from a very successful OT appointment. Did you know your lip and cheek muscles can be tight? Don't lie, you know you just checked yours. Well, it turns out that may be part of the problem with why he can't suck on a bottle. And really, I wouldn't care if he could take a bottle or not because Isabella never had one, but he needs calories and we don't want him to have a G-tube, which is a feeding tube. He also did really well with pureed pears being spoon fed to him today. Which is huge because he didn't scream when the food went in his mouth and even better, he actually moved the food around in his mouth. Okay, so he didn't really swallow anything, but we're taking baby steps and any progress is good progress! So I'm happy! 

If you're looking for something to keep your toddler occupied, I recommend planting seeds. It cheap, fun and a pretty cool science experiment! Our sunflowers are growing a little too fast though. I think maybe we planted too soon, but with my past planting failure I didn't have great expectations and the pessimist that I am, I wasn't really thinking they would grow at all. I'm glad they did though because otherwise I'd have one unhappy three year old on my hands. The first day we saw the green poking through the dirt Isabella was so excited she was shouting, "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I'm so excited, my sunflowers, my sunflowers are growing!!!!!" I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty darn excited too! And because we are longing for spring, we planted some more seeds this week because it's so fun to see happy little seedlings! I think spring is coming soon though because I heard birds chirping this morning!

Speaking of morning, Isaac thinks it's really cool this week to wake up at 5:30 a.m. Unfortunately, I don't think this is cool. Walter said we should change our last name to Zombie so that we can be The Zombies.

And speaking of hearing things, I'm pretty sure that Isabella will be deaf soon. She started losing her hearing when she was about two and a half, and let me warn all mothers of toddlers, it only gets worse. Here's a typical conversation with Isabella: 

Isabella, what do you want to do today?

What?

What do you want to do today?

What?

We're going to the library.

Oh, okay, that's great!

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Mommy, may I please have a snack. 

Okay, what kind of snack do you want?

What?

What kind of snack do you want?

I want bread with cream cheese.

Okay, which table are you going to sit at?

What?

This seriously goes on and on and on and Walter and I randomly test her by whispering when she isn't expecting it so that we know this is totally a case of selective hearing.  

I don't know why we haven't done this more often, but Sarah and I met at the gym so that the kids could play on the indoor tree house--very cool....

Compliments of Walter.....

I really wish I could do more of this each day...just not upside down....

and hopefully my mouth wouldn't hang open like this....

Calling all fairies.....

In case you're wondering why Isaac looks so weird, he's flapping his arms. He takes arm flapping very seriously.

Anybody need a doctor?

She makes house calls.....

It's been raining non-stop and we needed to get out of the house and I wanted to do something special with Isabella, so we went to the pottery painting place (I don't know what else to call it)....

She likes stripes....

Isabella chose to paint Ariel....

Have a great weekend!

Baby Pictures

I don't have much to report. Isaac's appoitment with the GI doctor was fairly unsatisfactory. We'll go back in three weeks to discuss the results of his lab work and in the meantime we'll keeping working with the Feeding Disorders Program so that we can make some progress with Occupational Therapy. This is such a slow process and very frustrating. The good news is that since Isaac has started scooting he seems much happier during the day. If you live in my house, this is definitely a good thing. Now, counter that with the six teeth he has coming in and it's a different story. 

Because Isaac's GI appointment was at the crack of dawn, Isabella slept over at my parent's house the night before. Of course she was thrilled and she was returned to us bathed and with a haircut--thanks mom! Whenever Walter and I are away from the kids it's obviously nice to have a break but we're always eager to have them back. We were talking about it yesterday and agreed that even when they are driving us crazy we so appreciate our little family unit that it always feels better when we're together.

A few weeks ago I took some baby pictures for a friend and I've finally edited them and put them in the mail! It usually doesn't take me this long to get pictures ready but things have been moving a bit slowly around here.

the poor thing, you can still see the needle pricks on his little feet

Something to laugh at....

Yesterday we had our first meeting with Feeding Disorders Program and I'm not ready to share what it was all about yet because we'll know more on Monday when we meet with GI. I will tell you that it was stressful and a lot was said that we weren't prepared to hear. With a twelve hour surgery behind him, Isaac's already been through a lot and we're praying we can avoid as many future procedures as possible. But we have some hard decisions to make and we'll know more on Monday.

On a happier note, today is Walter's birthday! Happy Birthday babe, you're the best and I wouldn't want to go through all of this craziness without you by my side! Do I still have to get a card for you or does this suffice? Last night I asked Walter if I could make anything special for his birthday dinner. I totally knew what he was going to say....grilled cheese with tomato soup. An easy one to please! If that's what the man wants, that what he gets! Well, and it's super easy for me so how can I say no to that!

And for some laughs, because God knows we need them right now......

There's a mirror on the bottom of this toy pot....